Monday, October 6, 2008

Ooookay...

This may be a little weird to read, as I am using Sammy's MacBook and I am having a heckuva time typing on this. Just an advisory.

September is a difficult month. You transition between Summer and Fall, schedules get crazy, new schools, new things, new responsibilities.

Let's start with Sammy:Sammy started 7th grade last month. Her grades are very good and she's enjoying school. Her schedule is fairly busy. She's on the swim team (practices M-F after school), has danceline on Saturday, and once a month, she goes to the Humane Society and participates in "Pet Set," which is a introduction to animal care and volunteering.

Swim has been good for Sammy - she's made new friends and is working hard and exercising. She did have a injury about two weeks ago. She was at an away meet and was warming up in the pool before the National Anthem. She tried to get out of the pool, slipped and got her leg caught in the pool gutter. The coaches from both teams, Sam's teammates, and the scoring official had to turn her on her stomach in the water to free her. As she got out of the pool, she got a round of applause, which she found terribly embarrassing. Her knee looked okay for the first hour or so, but then began to swell. I ran out and got her a couple ACE bandages and ice packs and taught her how to wrap her knee. She had such a massive bruise on her knee. It is much, much better now, though.

Health wise, or more accurately, toothwise, Sammy has some big changes coming. She's getting braces (full set) the week after Halloween and needs to get two of her top teeth pulled as well. We have an appointment set up with the oral surgeon tomorrow to go over options. Teeth pulling is not going to be an easy task for Sammy as the Von Willebrand's complicates things and she is at risk of increased bleeding with surgery. (L bled profusely after his wisdom teeth extraction as we didn't know he had this condition...) So, we'll meet with the surgeon, then with the hematologist and go from there.

More things that happened with Sammy: Some idiot kid made a bomb threat last week, so the school was evacuated at 2 pm last Thursday. They made the decision with the police to not let the kids back into school, so they had to walk to the elementary school a 1/2 mile away where the buses picked them up. I do have to give the school's parent warning system props - L and I got emails and voice messages on home, work and cell phones. I was able to leave work and go get Sam, who was a bit weirded out and frightened.

Stella began Bright Start, the pre-K program through the school district. She is having a bit of a rocky time adjusting to this - or maybe it's just me getting the vibe when I pick her up. She's been bringing in her lunch, but she seems to be hoarding her food and eating it on the way home. Applesauce doesn't seem to keep well. She is already starting to read and she likes coloring. Tomorrow is Picture Day and we have a pretty pink shirt for her. Stella has been having trouble with sleeping lately and will show up and climb into bed with me in the middle of the night. I think she would have a much easier time the next day if she had a good night sleep.

Work has been quite stressful this month as well. I've got a big project that I need to work on to ensure we meet compliance levels, in addition to the regular work duties. Also, our company changed its name last year. I was on the transition team to change clinical documents and external things from the old company name to the new name earlier this year. Very picky stuff - there's a 24 page "brand guidelines" that marketing has a fit if we deviate from the acceptable color scheme and font.

Anyhow, since I worked on this, I was designated the "Brand Ambassador" for our site. Our site is in a 6 story building and takes up space on the 1st, 2nd and 5th floor. There's about 350 people. The Brand Anniversary was, of course, in September, and was supposed to be a week long. We had a budget of $350 to get cake for the whole office, which was kind of a PITA coordinating this. I chose Monday to get it over with. Wednesday of that week, I had to deliver the company gift, which was actually very nice - a travel mug. I had a helper for the 1st floor and one of my collegues and I went to the 2nd and 5th floors dropping off mugs and checking off names. It took us 2 and a half hours. And of course with these things, there's initial happiness, then people got ticked off. They sent mugs to peoples homes who were designated as "Work at Home" employees. Some didn't get them and we're all, "Wah, wah: Where's my mug?" Then the stupid requests - "We had a trainer come in and she thinks our mugs are cool! Do you have any extra?" "Is she an employee?" "No..." Well, then... On Friday, "Greta, Suzie got her mug stolen from her desk! Do you have another one?" Now they're asking me for company post-it notes. Lady, I just have mugs. That's IT.

So that's the gist of September. Crazy busy and somewhat insane. Now to post this and give Angelena a shout out. (Check out the old pictures of me and L on Facebook! New printer/scanner from Costco, but that's another post. And my lap is hot from the crazy MacBook.